Strategies of Transculturation in the Poetry of the Russian-Tatar Borderland: Typology and Forms of Artistic Representation

Full Text

Introduction The artistic paradigm and issues of the borderland, which has various forms of manifestation in literature and has existed throughout history, appear to be sufficiently studied in contemporary science: there are monographs devoted to Yakut Russian-language literature [1], the Russian-Buryat literary borderland [2], Russian-language Karachay and Balkar prose [3], Russian-language writers of Mordovia [4], Abkhazia and Adygea [5], Kazakhstan [6], and Russian-language literature in Tatarstan [7; 8]. By studying the peculiarities of the functioning of Russian-language literary texts within the national and all-Russian literary process, scholars have come to the conclusion that authors are capable of existing and creating within the paradigms of different cultures. A tradition is emerging in which literature that embodies the phenomenon of borderlands is viewed in the context of transcultural [9; 1; 10], bi- and translingual [11; 12] models of artistic development. M. Epshtein defines transculture as an alternative model of cultural development to globalism, which is acquired “at the entrance from one’s own culture and at the crossroads with foreign cultures” [13. P. 624]; as “an area of ‘external necessity’ in relation to all existing cultures” [13. P. 631], “here the principle of interference, ‘scattering’ of the symbolic meanings of one culture in the field of other cultures, operates rather than differentiation” [13. P. 630]. M.V. Tlostanova explores trans- culturation as a new episteme, using an interdisciplinary approach to this category and transferring it from the sphere of cultural studies to the field of philosophy. As a social reality and type of thinking, transculturation is “an episteme of problematising difference and diversity” [9. P. 140], “a process of interpenetration and mutual influence of cultures” [9. P. 143]. Within the framework of annual international conferences dedicated to trans- lingual and transcultural processes in the modern world, held by the Department of Russian Language and Intercultural Communication of the Institute of Russian Language at RUDN University, a large amount of concrete empirical material has been collected and a theoretical and methodological platform for its study has been established. In this regard, it is necessary to identify categories and concepts relevant to transcultural literature that reveal its artistic and aesthetic specificity. The accumulated material clearly demonstrates that the phenomenon of trans- culturation is not homogeneous. Writers and poets who find themselves in similar conditions of cultural borderlands develop fundamentally different models of artistic exploration of this reality. Some strive for synthesis and harmonisation, while others dramatise the very state of borderland. This diversity of reactions urgently requires an understanding of such an element of the poetics of ‘borderland’ texts as strategy of transculturation. By the strategy of transculturation, we mean a system of artistic principles and techniques with which the author builds a dialogue between cultures: ‘own,’ ‘native,’ ‘other,’ ‘foreign’ - directly at the level of the poetics of the text. The aim is to identify and describe the main strategies of transculturation in poetry that embodies the phenomenon of the Russian-Tatar borderland. Materials and methods The theoretical and methodological basis of the work consists of structural- semiotic concepts of domestic and foreign science devoted to the phenomenon of the border as a place where diverse semantic flows intersect and new meanings are born [14; 15]. According to Yu.M. Lotman, the concept of the border is relative to the concept of semiotic individuality. To realise oneself in a cultural-semiotic sense means to realise one’s specificity, one’s opposition to other spheres [14. P. 175-192]. The methodological basis for scientific research in the field of Russian- Tatar borderlands was provided by the works of Yu.Ya. Barabash, which provide a comprehensive understanding of the ethnocultural borderland as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon - social reality, psychological state, special episteme, intertextual space, aesthetics and poetics. The typology of the borderland established by the author of the monograph ‘Foreign-Other-Own (On the Problems of the Ethnocultural Borderland)’ has also proved to be in demand. It is based on linguistic, intraliterary (features of the historical and literary process), sociocultural, historical, and aesthetic factors [16]. The concept of the proposed study was influenced by research that defines the main forms of hybrid identity and reveals its specific features [17; 9], highlighting the constitutive features of literary and artistic texts created by bilingual writers [18]. The analysis of the Oriental tradition in contemporary Russian-language poetry of the region is based on the theory of local texts and the principles of structural poetics, which offers a methodology for the systematic description of motivic complexes and large sets of texts as a conceptually unified system [14; 19]. The research material consisted of poetry collections by Rustem Kutuy, “Drifting Snow” (1985) and “Profile of the Wind” (2006), Ravil Bukharaev, “Book of Poems” (2011), Alena Karimova, “The Other Robe” (2006), and “Cold - Hot” (2015). The subject of analysis was works selected on the basis of their highest artistic value, their greatest characteristicity for the creative manner of the poets, and their representativeness from the point of view of the paths of self-identification of their lyrical subject. Results and Discussion In the original works of Russian-language poets, the strategy of transculturation is formed around the processes of self-determination, identification, and self- identification. Not only are they thematised, becoming central to borderland literature, but they also act as its structuring principles, determining the peculiarities of the organisation of the subjective sphere of the works and the originality of their figurative language. Therefore, when creating classification models, artistic and aesthetic guidelines that reflect the dialogical relations between ‘I’ and ‘a different one’, ‘own’ / ‘native’ / ‘foreign’ / ‘other’ in transcultural literature in general, and in poetry in particular, are essential. One of the main strategies in this context is a focus on synthesis. Its artistic embodiment is the work of authors such as R. Kutuy and R. Kozhevnikova, who feel their equal involvement in the national artistic traditions of both their native (Tatar) and Russian literature. In their poetry, the ‘I’ and the ‘different one’ enter into an aesthetic relationship of complementarity and harmonisation. ‘Native’ / ‘other’ as ‘ own’ in the poetry of R. Kutuy R. Kutuy’s literary heritage1 as a phenomenon of cultural borderlands has repeatedly been the subject of attention in scientific literature [see: 20]. R. Kutuy wrote his works in Russian, but he was well versed in Tatar literature and was guided by the traditions not only of Russian writers (A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, A.P. Chekhov, A.A. Blok, etc.), but also of Tatar writers (G. Tukay, Derdmend, M. Jalil, and others). The essential features of his creative position are determined by his dual identity, which allows him to recognise his belonging to both his native Tatar culture and Russian culture. Researcher of the poet’s work M.V. Nebolsina asserts: ‘As a Russian-speaking writer, R. Kutuy appears in literature as a bearer of such a value-based attitude towards culture, in which the values of one culture (Tatar) are understood in the context of another (Russian)’ [20. P. 4]. She traces the connection with Tatar culture on two levels: thematic (references to the historical past of his people) and figurative (the image of a horse, Kazan) [20. P. 16-17]. At the same time, these and similar considerations are not based on an analysis of the types of subject-image structures that emerge in the poet’s works and do not raise the question of the position of his lyrical subject. The role of language in a person’s life and in his personal destiny, according to R. Kutuy, is the subject of constant intense reflection: “For me, language is not just a means of communication, but, above all, an opportunity to express my state of mind, to reveal through words the heartache and joy of being.”2 According to the poet, he mastered the Russian language, which commanded him, from childhood. At the same time, the Tatar language was always close at hand. “This is how people live with the constant sound of the sea. Then I realised: this is fate. Not guilt, not misfortune - fate.”3 Although he is not a native speaker of Tatar language, R. Kutuy conveys his intimate and lyrical attitude towards it in his poems: My native language lives within me, like the breath of a bird’s wings, like a tightness of the throat, - unspoken, it aches sweetly, it is a tear in my eyes. Without ceasing its mischief, its tenderness - it is a feast for a homeless boy. Only blood knows in the inviolability of the run.4 1 Rustem Adelshevich Kutuy (1936-2010) was the son of Adel Kutuy, a classic of Tatar literature, and was himself a translator, poet and prose writer. 2 Kutuy, R. 2011. My Country - Childhood: Stories. Moscow: Guiding Star, pp. 40. 3 Ibid. 4 Kutuy, R.A. 1985. Drifting Snow. Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 127. The originality of the poem’s starting point lies in the fact that the native language is referred to in the third person and remains unspoken. But it is not separated from the fullness of the personal existence of the ‘I’, in all its depth and infinity, its tremulous uncertainty and complexity. The language speaks through the ‘I’, but not with words, but with the uneven rhythm of breathing, sweet pain, tears in the eyes, the flow of blood. The tragic situation of separation from one’s native language is reflected in the poem ‘The Prodigal Son,’ which features two subjects of consciousness and speech: ‘I’ and ‘the voice’ (‘the other’). Endowed with the traits of a super-subject, the ‘voice’ possesses a postulated independence and its own words, separate from those of the author. The ‘voice’ is described as ‘disturbing’ and ‘persistent,’ coming from nowhere, and for some reason ‘mocking and tormenting.’ The value expression of the ‘voice’ is such that it seeks to deprive the ‘I’ of its home and condemn it to eternal wandering: ‘You took someone else’s speech as your friend, a fickle one. And despised your own language! Go forth, wandering the earth, walk reviled! A messenger will come at the end of Uraza5 and call... <...> O son of Allah, you have lost your way! Stop!..’ 6 The ‘voice’ embodies a generalised personal consciousness - the collective consciousness of people who sharply condemn those who have chosen a language other than their native tongue as a means of creative self-expression. Hence the accusatory pathos and corresponding emotional tension of the speech, combined with a religious-didactic attitude that goes back to the traditions of adab7 and nasihat.8 The subject of this statement is the bearer of the imperative and 5 Uraza - Muslim fasting. 6 Kutuy, R. 2006. Profile of the Wind: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 238. 7 Adab is a fundamental concept in Islamic culture, defining the system of Muslim upbringing and education [21] and the genre of moral and didactic literature [Smirnov, A.V. 2001. “Adab.” In Ethics. Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Edited by R.G. Apresyan and A.A. Huseynov. Moscow: Gardariki publ.]. 8 Nasihat (from Arabic - ‘admonition,’ ‘instruction,’ ‘moral teaching’) - ‘in medieval Persian and Turkic-Tatar literature, a poetic, prose or mixed work of didactic content. In an aphoristic, figurative form, the reader is given advice, instruction, and edification’ [Tatar Encyclopedia: In 6 vols. 2008. Kazan: Institute of Tatar Encyclopedia of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, vol. 4: M-P. 768 p.]. monologised speech, in which, according to M.M. Bakhtin, ‘a complete and strictly delimited system of meanings can be felt; it strives for unambiguity and, above all, for value unambiguity. … It speaks with one voice. … It lives in a ready-made, stably differentiated and evaluated world.’9 The strict, categorical nature of the ‘voice’ is contrasted with the position of the ‘I’, who is ‘condemned to eternal judgement’ and sets off on a journey. He addresses his father and mother in his native language, but receives no answer: ‘Ani10 !’ he called. But the twilight did not answer. ‘Ati11 !’ he sighed. The path to the moon has been laid.12 The anxiety about the threat of falling out of the chain of ancestral succession seems well-founded. The ‘prodigal son’ recognises the moral superiority and independent value of the point of view expressed in the ‘voice,’ but he also sees something else in it - monological isolation, detachment from the complexity, contradictions and ambiguities of real life, from depth and openness: A leaf covered with dew. There is God. The hearth. There is the dark light of the threshold. And then all the rays crossed.13 At the same time, R. Kutuy understood well how difficult it was for him to fit his vision of the world into the material of the Russian language he had learned. Reflections on this topic are contained in the article ‘What to Call Poetry’: “Here comes a young poet into Tatar poetry and begins to speak in free verse. His lines are angular, his words springy... And everything is too cramped for him, and he, forgetting himself, cuts the line or lengthens it, caught up in a rhythm that only he understands. And he hears: “This is not in the traditions of Tatar poetry!” But the young poet respects and knows everything that came before. He is only trying to expand the boundaries of tradition.”14 In this case, we can talk about the ‘transcultural creativity’15 of a Russian-speaking author, manifested not only at the level of vocabulary, but also in the forms of poetry. 9 Bakhtin, M.M. 1986. Literary-Critical Articles. Moscow: Khudozh. lit., pp. 513. 10 ‘Ani’ in the Tatar language means ‘mother’. 11 ‘Ati’ in the Tatar language means ‘father’. 12 Kutuy, R. 2006. Profile of the Wind: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 238. 13Ibid. 14 Nebolsina, M.V. 2011. I tried to unravel the meaning of life... Kazan: Pluto publ., p. 87. 15 ‘Transcultural creativity manifests itself in the transmission of the national and cultural specificity of the phenomena described in another language, primarily at the lexical level’ [see: 22. P. 350]. The poet’s position ‘on the border’ and ‘between’ is expressed in the dynamic interaction of elements from two national cultures. The symbol of the cultural identity of the lyrical hero and his ‘I’ as a unique individual is the image of the city created in the cycle ‘My Kazan! - I Have the Right to Say,’ which opens the collection ‘Profile of the Wind’: ‘Who will forgive my memory, / my temple caked with blood, / when the West and the East collided, / poverty and wealth, / and sparks passed through me...’ (‘Slobodskoe Videniya’).16 The essential unity of the lyrical hero and the city is rooted in their shared belonging to the borderland - the point of contact between the West and the East (see: [23. P. 179-182]). Organic involve- ment in the traditions of both Tatar and Russian cultures is interpreted by R. Kutuy, on the one hand, in the context of the family and personal theme, filled with high poetry, and on the other hand, included in the broad sphere of interaction between the West and the East. “The ‘East’ and ‘West’ in the cultural geography of Russia invariably appear as rich symbols based on geographical reality, but in fact imperatively dominating it” [24. P. 746]. In R. Kutuy’s poetic discourse, ‘West’ and ‘East’ are concepts that are filled with historiosophical and cultural meanings and play a fundamental role in the processes of self-identification. The poem ‘Thunderstorm. Demon’ is based on a three-part parallelism of ‘thunderstorm,’ ‘Demon,’ and ‘I’: What a thunderstorm raged! Well, she17 stirred the clouds with a pole, a baby pressed to her chest, - And she herself was warm and alive... Completely mad, where was she running to? Smoking with a burning shawl. And the distance, many-armed, trembled with a moan, Waved her fiery tousle through the air... I was choking with rage, afraid for myself, helpless and alone on the ground, in front of huge windows. I was a child, but at the same time an old man, a wanderer forgotten by God... I stood barefoot near the windows. Who was I? A wild East? 16 Kutuy, R. 2006. Profile of the Wind: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 17. 17 “She” means the thunderstorm here [translator’s note]. Or the sighing West? A secret rapture? ... Then I enjoyed the silence. ‘I've waited! - I whispered. - I’ve waited!’ Same way the defeated Demon, without anger, looks at the hateful sky.18 Like the ‘storm’ and the ‘demon,’ the lyrical hero also has an internally mobile ‘structure’ and looks at the world from different points of view: ‘child,’ ‘old man,’ ‘wanderer,’ ‘wild East,’ ‘sighing West,’ ‘secret rapture.’ Different guises of the ‘I’: temporal (‘child’ and ‘old man’), territorial-cultural (‘East’ and ‘West’), vital- existential sensations (‘choking,’ ‘helpless,’ ‘lonely,’ ‘God-forgotten wanderer’) and emotional-psychological states (‘secret rapture’) - not only replace each other, but are also present in it simultaneously, flickering through each other and creating a special poetic modality. The clash between the ‘floating’ layers of the hero’s personality is resolved by catharsis - the enjoyment of the ensuing silence, followed by another metamorphosis: the transformation of the ‘I’ and the ‘thunder- storm’ into the ‘defeated Demon.’ Symbolic parallelism reveals in the lyrical hero, who is searching for the answer to the question ‘Who am I?’, a natural-demonic hypostasis, endowing him with the attributes of characters belonging to the upper and lower worlds. Thus, bringing the West and the East closer together and overcoming their historical opposition, R. Kutuy forms a special ‘bimental’ perception of the world - his own version of a ‘West-East synthesis.’ The search for the ‘I’ and the word in the poetry of R. Bukharaev The identity crisis that became the starting point for R. Bukharaev’s creativity19 defines the subjective architecture of his works. It reflects the experience of self- determination of a personality who, like the ‘symbolic nomad’ of Zh. Delez and F. Guattari, exists in an open space - ‘indefinite and uncommunicative’ [25. P. 639]. In the book “The Road God Knows Where”, written as letters to his brother, R. Bukharaev discusses at length how and why he ‘fell away’ from his national identity, expressed in the form of language, as well as why ‘the Tatar language holds so tightly and does not let go’ of his ‘multilingual soul’: ‘Why, at the very first sounds of my native Tatar language, does my soul shrink into a trembling lump, like an autumn bird in that poor garden, where the beggarly rain of my Kazan childhood walks, quietly rustling the currant leaves; and my grandmother and grandfather are still alive... 18 Kutuy, R. 2006. Profile of the Wind: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 123. 19 Ravil Raisovich Bukharaev (1951-2012) was a poet, prose writer, playwright, translator, journalist, historian, and publicist. It aches, Lord. For this is the language of love that will never happen to me among people: love simply for the fact that I exist, selfless love that has forever become the secret support and secret hope of existence... How can I respond to this love? With my own Russian poems? How can I repay the orphan’s sorrow, the unfathomable, lofty and starry melancholy of Tatar songs; the bitterness of Tatar poetry, the autumn leaves falling on the Old Tatar cemetery, where I would like to lie when the time comes - closer and closer to my native land... You cannot repay this with everyday Tatar words, nor with Russian ones. For, no matter how you look at it, they lack the ultimate authenticity, love and gratitude of the dying...’ (Italics by R. Bukharaev).20 The tense confrontation between the ‘native’ and the ‘foreign’ / ‘other’, which are close to becoming ‘one’s own’ but never quite do so, is a hopelessly tragic conflict experienced by the poet and his lyrical hero. The severing of organic ties with national and ancestral origins and the heroic yet tragically doomed attempt to restore them is symbolised by the image of an apple tied to a branch:21 ‘Like an apple tied to a branch, / my naturalness is artificial.’22 Unable to become ‘one of his own’ in any culture, R. Bukharaev’s hero is nevertheless no stranger to preserving the history of his people, embodying ethnic codes and matrices of national consciousness - first and foremost, his native city of Kazan and certain locations within it: Lake Kaban, Zakaban, Bulak, his grandfather’s house located next to the Pletenevskaya prison, M. Vakhitov Street, which is associated with his childhood, the Tatar settlement, the Old Tatar cemetery, and the Azimovskaya mosque. By actualising memory, these mini-topos perform an identifying function - for the author of the book The Road God Knows Where, they are ‘native’ but ‘other’: ‘And everywhere with me is this unbearable echo of an unfulfilled existence, this echo of childhood immortality; the call of another, always another life, which you only have to remember - and you will choke with tears and pity, because it will never be; because it already was - and passed, and you didn’t even notice...’ (Italics by R. Bukharaev).23 The melodies that contain мoң24 are ‘native’ to the lyrical subject of R. Bukharaev: ‘If I had been forever maddened, / I would have rushed into the run, / 20 Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Unity. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 401. 21 ‘An Apple Tied to a Branch’ is the title of R. Bukharaev’s first collection of poetry, pub- lished in 1977. 22 Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Unity. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 81. 23 Ibid., p. 397. 24 Moң is a key concept in Tatar culture, one of the parameters of its national identity, which has no adequate verbal expression in Russian [see: 26]. if only the blood had not burned, / the snow had not shone, // if only there, where the grave / of the shallow river is, / the power of Taftilyau, / Alluki had not blistered!’25 In his artistic and aesthetic interpretation of the concept of мoң, the poet draws on the traditions of G. Tukay and Derdmend.26 R. Bukharaev is close to Derdmend in his understanding of мoң as the ‘language’ of nature and the cosmos. The expressive essence of this non-anthropocentric world, symbolised by sounds, resonates with the lyrical hero, awakening deep ancestral layers of consciousness in him: “In the rustling of black leaves by the river, / by the bright edge of the water / you hear the overtones of ‘Alluki’ / and the cry of the soul. Is this the sound of the kurai? // But it is only the wind, rustling the leaves, / it will fly away, - and something in us will then weep...”27 The reality of the world (the rustling of black leaves by the river - the cry of the soul - the sound of the kuray - the noise of the wind - the weeping) appears in its continuity and fluidity and at the same time as a process of rupture, of disintegration of integrity: “In the strait, someone’s boat was carried away: / the fragile chains broke.”28 But this is not the eternal pulsation of living life, in which the rhythms of the world can be discerned, as in Derdmend, but processes caused by the erosion of language as the bond of national existence. G. Tukay in “Милли моңнар” (“National Melodies”, 1909) shows the impact of the folk song “Əллүки” (“Alluki”) on the lyrical hero. A similar situation is reproduced by the younger poet: in the poem “By the Strait,” a resonant space is created in which the ‘overtones of “Alluki” are not simply passively perceived, but also evoke an emotional response, which remains silent, unexpressed in words: “I hum ‘Alluki’ - without words, / and you stir the smoke with a spoon...”29 The ambivalent state of constant balancing ‘between’ cultures is denoted by the poet with the metaphor of a ‘dual soul.’30 The paths of self-identification of R. Bukharaev’s lyrical subject correlate with the search for words. The situation of bilingualism and multilingualism is defined as ‘the space of the Spirit - the realm between languages31’ (“Between Languages”).32 The parallelism between speech and river, reinforced by the anagrammatic intersection of the words ‘language’ and ‘river,’ reveals a similar 25 Taftilyau, Alluki - folk songs with lyrics by G. Tukay; Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Unity. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 64. 26 Derdmend (translated from Persian, this word means ‘suffering,’ ‘saddened’) is the pseudonym of the classic of Tatar literature Ramiev Muhammad-Zakir Muhammad-Sadikovich (1859-1921). 27 Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Poems. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., pp. 11-12. 28 Ibid., p. 12. 29 Ibid., p. 12. 30 Ibid., p.132. 31 In the original: ‘между-речья’. This is a play on words; it can be interpreted as either ‘between rivers’ or ‘between languages’ (translator’s note). 32 Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Poems. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 262. natural-generic substance in the languages of different peoples, uniting them in a common collective message. V.N. Toporov believes that the identification of the river with singing, speech, and poetry is based not only on ‘the acoustic effect of noisy flowing water, but also on the image of the flow of the river and speech itself, a sequential flow - development, from beginning to end, to a state of semantic fullness.’33 In R. Bukharaev’s poetic system, the river acquires the status of a fundamental aesthetic and philosophical category. It acts as a symbol of artistic substance, the flow of time, history and life. This image has a special function: it is aimed at restoring the lost integrity of the world and removing the oppositions between internal and external, spirit and matter, life and death, finite and infinite, random and regular. The non-verbal speech of nature, similar to the ‘flow of words’ uttered by the water element, overlaps and drowns out any other speech, affirming the ‘truth between words.’ A person can enter a world that is ‘foreign’ to them and come closer to understanding it only with the help of the language of creation and the cosmos, which sounds both in natural images, impressive in their scale, and in the smallest, most intimate manifestations of living life: in the ‘aching light and mountain air of Kartli,’ the mountains and sea of Georgia, in the ‘transparent grapes’ of Chisinau, which ‘gushed with warm, tart juice,’ in the light of a gypsy campfire and a loaded collective farm cart, in the ‘viscous honey of the Ural sunset,’ in the crossroads beaten by ‘bloody hooves,’ in the bumblebee ‘on the primroses of Salavat,’ in the karst chasms, ‘where God, / counting time, moulds stalagmites,’34 in the light and darkness merging over the Crimean steppe, in the splendour of Sofia and the ‘dead gloom of the laurel,’ in the oak groves and ravines of Chuvashia, in the velvet night of Kalmykia, in its fresh air and the cry of the seagull, in the expanses of Kazakhstan and the voices of the mazars. The expanding scope of the worldview is achieved through continuous and purposeful development - the construction of natural and geographical space. The movement proceeds synchronously in two directions: vertically and horizontally, there is a process of grouping and integrating semantic elements that form the semantic fields of the Top (sky, clouds, mountains) and the Bottom (water and land surfaces: forests, gardens, seas, roads). This space expresses expansiveness, will and stability horizontally, and freedom, purposefulness, self-knowledge and self- determination vertically. In this beautiful and spacious world, there are no external barriers for man and his spirit. The poem contrasts blood ties with spiritual kinship, exacerbated by the opposition between the immediate, sensual, instinctive, vital force pulsating in matter and the sublime, ideal principle, the sphere of absolute, universally valid 33 Toporov, V.N. 1997. “River.” In Myths of the Peoples of the World: In 2 vols. Moscow: Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 1. pp. 374-376. P. 375. 34 Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Poems. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 263. values: “If I lose my flesh, my voice and my hearing, / I have already compensated for half my life / with kinship by blood - kinship of spirit / in the space between rivers (languages).”35 In this context, the ‘area between rivers’ acquires another phenomenal feature: endowed with the properties of water (changeability, mobility, counter-structurality), it turns out to be an intermediate substance between different poles, a place of rupture and metamorphosis, acquiring the ability to replace the material with the spiritual, form with essence, the destructive work of time with memory: ‘What is sewn for eternity cannot be unstitched, / whatever misfortune may befall me, / living memory replaces flesh, / as long as the soul lives in the space of the Spirit.’36 At the same time, being ‘between’ (cultures, spaces, eras) is associated with profound existential losses: ‘As a stepson of my native language, / I live, write and think in Russian!’37 The poet’s dramatic reflections on the impossibility of mastering his native language as a means of creative self-expression are reflected in the sonnet cycle ‘Alms of the Native Language.’ Just as the Tatar language could not become the language of creativity, Russian could not become the language of prayer: ‘I can allow myself to say everything in Russian, to express everything: love for a woman, fear, anger, but not the essence of my prayer, which consists of despair, hope and gratitude. Here is the last edge of myself, of who I was supposed to become, but did not and will never become.’38 The duality of values in the poet’s identity crisis defines the essence of his aesthetics. At its core is the experience of overcoming this crisis, which corresponds to the Speach that is reborn each time and the emergence of the ‘I’ into the creative dimension of being: ‘I did not so much desire to burn hearts with the word, / as to burn away / the merchant’s calculation, / the Tatar father's speech / continuing with the Russian / hard-won speech...’ (“Kyrlay - Kyrlyk”).39 Speech is one of the favourite and semantically rich motifs of R. Bukharaev's poetry. At the same time, it is a mythological character specific to the poet, appearing in many of his works and possessing special semantic functions. In the poem “It does not run back to its sources...” the position ‘between’ turns into a situation of ‘nowhere’, involvement in various forms of life and world orders - detachment from them: “It does not run back to its sources / even a simple stream. / I will say with delight: / Lord, I belong to no one! // Whether my homeland will return, / or a foreign land lies ahead, / I am a stranger to myself, / forgive me, Lord.” The tragic overcoming of the alienation of the ‘I’ from the world and from itself requires active suffering from the subject: “And again, unlocking 35 Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Poems. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 263. 36 Ibid., p. 265. 37 Ibid., p. 12. 38 Ibid., p. 402. 39 Ibid., p. 308. my silence, / I appropriate the rights / of twelve languages / to forget words, // so that something / fierce, unholy, / bleeding speech / this one - and not that one - may be expressed.”40 The parallelism between speech and the flow of blood, pouring from the mouth, not only reveals the physical and bodily nature of human communication, but also reveals the connection between the acts of speech and sacrifice as semantic equivalents forming a single syncretic reality. But the sacrifice in this case is not ‘holy’ but ‘fierce’; it has no altruistic orientation (social, cultural, performed for the sake of saving humanity), but pursues the goal of self-redemption, even at the cost of self-destruction. As in the sonnet cycles “The Beetle and the Toad (A Wreath for the Coat of Arms),” “Call (Wreath of Misty Sonnets),” “Wreath of Wild Sonnets,” “Alms of the Native Language (Wreath of Raw Smoke),” the liberation of the poet’s ‘I’ from the tormenting matrix of linguistic consciousness is achieved by erasing the boundaries between man and nature, text and world. R. Bukharaev’s lyrical hero contrasts ‘bleeding speech’ with ‘bird speech,’ which is ‘more honest and more human / than human speech.’41 In the poem ‘Rock Above the Lake,’ it calls for unity and has a healing effect: ‘The future cannot be warned against! / But I believe that in the everyday life of the golden age / in union with bird speech, human speech / will heal human bitterness.’42 R. Bukharaev’s semiotics is naturalistic and cosmological. ‘Bird language,’ being a system of unconditional messages involved in the structure of the universe and taken from the register of existence, including human existence, has great communicative value for him. With the help of its signs, an existential-cognitive contact is established, the essence of which is revealed through light images and motifs (“The Tree of Light”). Archetypal memory, associated with the symbolism of light and the tree (of life, worldly, paradisiacal), which constructs the vertical orientation of the topos, is used for a metaphorical and generalised philosophical interpretation of the qualities of ‘bird language,’ its detachment from earthly cares and passions, transforming and harmonising the world of possibilities: ‘In the language of birds - you cannot beg for a loan, / nor weave gossip, / nor beg for advice, / but you can explain / how from the rags of darkness / the Tree of Light rises.’43 ‘Bird speech,’ like any other, is akin to a river, and as the vital and immediate language of nature, it is infinite, flowing from never-ending sources: ‘Bird language is infinite, and noon is not bad; / shadows are clear; glimpses are blue and sunny between leaves; / splashes on the stone; a stream - and silver moss / (steps in the grove are rocky) / (my love, where are you?)’ (“Chiri”).44 40 Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Poems. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 308. 41 Ibid., p. 225. 42 Ibid., p. 225. 43 Ibid., p. 226. 44 Ibid., p. 226. Speech, which is placed at the last line of existence and is in an intermediate position between life and death (‘... but speech does not want to live and does not want to die ...’ (‘I grope for the sound, where there is chirping or whistling...’),45 is contrasted with the native language.46 The initial premise of the poem “On Tukay’s Translations” is determined by the reflection of the lyrical consciousness, turned to its own creative possibilities: the poet sums up his two years of work on translations of G. Tukay’s works. R. Bukharaev’s dialogue with the classic of Tatar literature, carried out in various forms, is the subject of a separate study. Here, we will note the intense fervour of the author’s pathos, generated by the idea of the native language as the highest spiritual and moral value: In Kazan, the leaves are falling. The roots are dying. I am unable to master the translation. Tukaev’s sad horses break the ice on the Bulak with their hooves. Frost and snow are coming. For two years now my efforts have been in vain. I realised too late how free, willing and faithful, my native tongue is! Amidst the deciduary indolent prates I suddenly felt, holding my breath: such precision in these sounds, these phrases, that in them alone my soul lives47 . The generalised philosophical and aesthetic characterisation of the native language is combined with the deep, intimate and personal experience contained in the poem. The image in the poem is constructed in such a way that through the 45 Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Poems. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 271. 46 It should be noted that the poet considered the Tatar language to be the ‘main human language’ of his existence: it was with this language that ‘everything began and, truth be told, everything continues. And wherever I may be, as soon as I close my eyes and detach myself from my surroundings, everything comes back to me: the warmth of the stove and the damp, chilly mist outside the window, the sighs and whispers of the garden, the creaking of the floorboards - and my native language. <...> I taught myself Tatar grammar and later the Arabic alphabet when I was already a relatively grown man. What, in essence, do I have the right to call my native language - the Tatar language?’ [Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Unity. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 400]. 47 Bukharaev, R.R. 2011. Selected Works: Book of Poems. Kazan: Magarif - Vakyt publ., p. 194. natural setting (leaf fall in Kazan) the creative one shimmers. The words of the ‘I’ - translator - are in a relationship of symbolic parallelism with the falling leaves, which contain nothing necessary, so one can ignore them, not value them; while the translated texts are like ice (which is emphasised by the imprecise rhyme of ‘translation’ and ‘ice’48), which is shattered by the hooves of Tukay’s sad horses: they lack integrity, firmness and strength. Dying roots, frost and snow are the natural embodiment of creative failure; they are inherent in the hero’s futile efforts to ‘master translation.’ The uneven, slow pyrrhic verse, coinciding with the unhurried movement of falling leaves, is inter- rupted by the uneven rhythm of breathing and the sounds of native speech, changing the subjective situation of the poem. In the first and third stanzas, the ‘I’ was in the foreground, taken from a certain point of view - in relation to Tukay and his native language, which is inseparable from him. The semantic development of the theme consistently brings the native language to the fore, while the ‘I’ recedes into the background. The personal pronoun is replaced by a possessive pronoun, which emphasises the distinctiveness of the image of the soul. It correlates not so much with the ‘I’ as with the element of the native language that gives it life. The revealed intention of the ‘sounds’ and ‘phrases’ of the Tatar language elevates the author’s existential and creative issues to a new level, motivating the transition of the ‘I’ from one vital-ideological position to another - the loss of the system of genealogical-ethnic ties (‘the roots are dying’) is replaced by the restoration of deep-rooted principles through creative efforts that connect to the element of the native language. By questioning or denying the value of his statements in Russian or Tatar, the poet creates his own myth about the Word, Sound, the language of birds and nature, reminding us of the archaic undifferentiated nature of the subject and the means of its representation. R. Bukharev’s lyrical hero contrasts the limitations and inadequacies of human speech with silence and emptiness as the highest forms of communication, which do not need words, as well as a means of creative self- expression, adequate to the poet's ‘I’, the voice of his soul. Finally, he fills the gap that has formed in culture by throwing his life into it, transforming the fragmentation of mental states into a life-giving unity. Remaining outside the boundaries in the sphere of universal human themes and problems Poets such as R. Galimov (1946-1982), E. Blinova (1955-2013), L. Gazizova (b. 1967), A. Absalyamova (b. 1981), address the issue of identity on a universal level, to some extent distancing themselves from issues of national self-awareness and self-determination. In their original work, they do not build bridges across 48 In the original: ‘перевод’ and ‘лед’. These are two words that rhyme (translator’s note). cultural frontiers in an attempt to connect ethnically distant traditions. The dialogical relations between subjects in their poetry exist within the framework of a single world, which acts as their common measure. Their goal is not to overcome the boundaries between specific cultures (Russian and Tatar), but to rise to a level of generalization where ethnocultural specificity becomes a special case of universal existential themes. The proposed typology is conditional and does not refer to absolute boundaries. The work of Alena Karimova49 occupies a unique place in contemporary Russian- language poetry. In her poetry, the issues of the Russian-Tatar borderland are refracted in her creative plots. These include the choice of language, the mission of the poet ‘standing on the border,’ his human destiny, and the peculiarities of his character and psychology, in which traces of ancient, archaic layers can be found: ...I am not at all in them... I don’t play the kobyz... I cherish and nurture a foreign language. My native Tatar people are dissatisfied with me for this and are ready to condemn me to silence, but we share the same character - rebellious, like the steppe. <...> I stand on the border. I am the voice. I am your liaison. I stand between worlds. I am always on the outside. Let the ages and languages speak through me and let peoples come together, feeling the pull, we are all human beings, and we all drink from the same river, only while we are together will we escape oblivion.50 Like the older generation of poets, A. Karimova expresses the worldview of a person who stands on the border between worlds and cultures. But while the lyrical subjects of R. Kutuy and R. Kozhevnikova take a position of internal existence in relation to them, A. Karimova’s heroine emphasises her position at a point of external existence (‘always outside’) and appeals to universal human meanings that transcend the division of the world into West and East. A. Karimova’s lyrical heroine is aware of her extreme openness to the world and the many opportunities for self- realisation: Sleepy haystacks, mown strawberries, Wind, birch trees, clouds, animals. So what if I go uninvited, I belong to all directions. 49 Aliya Kayumovna Karimova (b. 1976) is a poet and translator. 50 Karimova, A.K. 2015. Cold - Hot: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House. Here are all four cheerful sides, Everything for me, or I for everyone, I love those near and far equally - Is that a sin?51 This boundless, almost cosmic space narrows to the closed and isolated locus of home, the initial situation of mutual belonging between ‘I’ and the world is replaced by the aspiration of ‘I’ towards ‘you,’ ‘the other’: But white light means nothing, I will bring it into the house by the handful, Here, take it and possess it, my dear, Just take me with you as in addition.52 In this sense, the lyrics of A. Karimova, like those of E. Blinova, L. Gazizova, and A. Absalyamova, reflect the self-awareness of modern women who comprehend themselves, their unique inner world, and their destiny by juxtaposing two panoramas - worldly and individual life: The colourful, multilingual oriental bazaar I dream and dream... and the walls of great palaces, impassive muezzins and minarets, but suddenly I wake up from a silly thought: ‘Where are you?’ And now, look, Venice. Masks of terrible grins, and languor, and sweetness, and yesterday's anger... A sound is born in my throat, trembling resiliently - what a dishevelled word - ‘friend.’ You cannot say ‘mine’ - there is nothing of yours in this world...53 In A. Karimova’s poems, as in R. Bukharaev’s works, the action unfolds across a vast space, at the intersection of different eras and traditions. But unlike her older contemporary, for whom motifs embodying the idea of transition, fluidity, and overcoming boundaries between different types of cultures, traditions, and languages are particularly significant, in A. Karimova’s poetry, space is constructed relative to a centre - the focus of ‘own,’ around which the picture of the world in general is constructed, along with the values, imperatives, and authorities that fill this world: In the space of the universe, empty and crooked, a hero in worn jeans with a hole in them, it’s fun to feel like yourself in the global 51 Karimova, A. 2006. Another Dress: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 62. 52 Ibid., p. 62. 53 Ibid., p. 75. context, searching, like lost Troy, one’s own right city, and one’s own garden, where there is nowhere left to stack stones, but there is something to breathe, and such oxygen can never be found anywhere else.54 I.A. Enikeev, noting the lyrical heroine’s (of A. Karimova) fascination with the road, asserts: ‘An image is created of the poet’s movement along the edge of the earth, along the border between the mundane and the divine. This movement strives towards its centre - the image of the family hearth, the space of home, filled with the light of motherhood, pouring out onto the whole world’ [8. P. 79]. It is at this level of the poet’s artistic world that a contemporary researcher of Russian-language literature in Tatarstan discovers national Tatar motifs: ‘This is especially noticeable in the cycle of poems ‘Deveni,’ dedicated to her grandmother, with whom she lived as a child in a Tatar village on the banks of the Cheremshan River’ [8. P. 80]. A. Karimova’s works contain images and symbols from various cultural and religious traditions: pagan (‘the spirits of the sacred grove roam the village of the dead’ (“Keremet”55), Christian (‘Pray in your palms, kiss the crucifix...’56; ‘Not that he was wise, not that he was bold, / a little kind, a little cunning, but still man managed / to invent a single God. // And now God sits in threes, / not fitting into the eye / of consciousness’57), Islamic (‘If you have rosary beads in your hands, it’s still not prayers in your head’58), Eastern (‘Come true, life! Lead me, East! / The fakir plays. Evening at the arena’59) and Western (‘There is no East in the world - / the West is everywhere, no matter which end you look from. // Sunset everywhere...’60). However, the poet does not differentiate them conceptually on the basis of ‘us and them’ and does not seek to create images of ‘native’ or ‘foreign’ cultures in her work. Her artistic approach is different - to form a field of reflection on herself, her destiny, her life path and creative pursuits, saturated with meanings that refer to different cultural traditions. Karimova’s work develops a unique discourse on Tatar national culture, traditions, customs and practices, intersecting with the ‘Eastern text’ of Russian literature and incorporating elements of the ‘Kazan text.’ The concept of the family home is central to this discourse, actualising themes of genetic memory, family, continuity, and responsibility to previous and future generations. 54 Karimova, A.K. 2015. Cold - Hot: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 100. 55 Ibid., p. 50. 56 Karimova, A. 2006. Another Dress: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 42. 57 Ibid., p. 45. 58 Ibid., p. 23. 59 Ibid., p. 104. 60 Ibid., p. 92. For example, in A. Karimova’s poems dedicated to her grandmother (дəү əни / “deveni”), details of the Tatar national way of life are recreated, combining the situational and the existential, everyday realities and the high poetry of feelings: Dear, how restless is the light, quick to punish, but stingy with affection... Who can now find the answer, how many potatoes were needed for the soup? Who can I ask where the best ford is across the foolish Cheremshan River? Is it not there, touching the sleepy waters, did your soul fly away today... <...> Beyond the village lies Lake Sultanbey. I bought a green inflatable circle. And handed it over: ‘Here, silly girls,61 don’t be shy, surprise your noisy friends.’62 The ethnographic aspect of Tatar folk life is important to A. Karimova not in itself. Behind it lies a national philosophy of existence, a spiritual experience accumulated over many generations, which is inherited by the lyrical heroine. Comparing herself to her grandmother, she emphasises the difference in their characters: ‘... I cannot, as you could - / build a house on any ruins, / I am made of different - senseless - clay, / I do not know how - gardens, flowers...’63 But the memory of ‘дəү əни’ and spiritual closeness to her give her the moral strength to withstand life's trials: ‘I am building a house for my son out of blocks - / I know the prolonged cold will pass. / I will learn. Not now - later... / I will learn. / This / is very necessary.’64 Thus, the continuity of generations is preserved, and a person realises that they are a link (grandmother, son who has ‘his own devani’) connecting space and time. Tatar national culture is present in the works of Russian-speaking authors and in a ‘removed form’ - at the lexical level, in the forms of speech that determine the specificity of their artistic consciousness. A. Karimova speaks of three layers of her personality, corresponding to her three names, two Russian and one Tatar: ‘They called me Alena and they called me Lena. / And that - those letters in my passport - A-l-i-ya - / also seem to be me... ,’65 she expresses her gratitude to her ‘дəү əни’ (grandmother) in two languages: ‘Darling, is this what family is? / Zur 61 ‘Balam’ in the Tatar language means ‘my child’. 62 Karimova, A. 2006. Another Dress: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 98. 63 Ibid., p. 99. 64 Ibid. 65 Karimova, A.K. 2015. Cold - Hot: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 58. rahmat. Thank you for them.’66 The coexistence in the artistic structure of works of Russian and Tatar languages, images and symbols originating from different sources reflects the phenomenon of double vision of reality. Thus, the themes of home and family, images of the native city and the Tatar language represent key moments in the emerging supra-textual unity of the Tatar national world in contemporary regional Russian-language poetry. The interpre- tations proposed by A. Karimova deepen and develop the oriental tradition of Russian literature. Conclusion An analysis of the poetry of R. Kutuy, R. Bukharaev, and A. Karimova has shown that the situation of cultural borderlands gives rise to fundamentally different artistic strategies, which can be systematised into three dominant models. One of them, embodied in the poetry of R. Kutuy, is oriented towards the synthesis and harmonisation of cultural oppositions. Different national artistic traditions cease to be perceived as ‘ours’ and ‘theirs,’ acquiring the status of complementary and mutually enriching principles that form a holistic image of the world. The second model, expressed in the work of R. Bukharaev, dramatises the crisis of identity itself as an existential entity . The way out of cultural-psychological and epistemological contradictions and dead ends is seen in turning to such phenomena as the spiritual space ‘between words,’ the myth of the Word, and ‘bird speech.’ The third approach, manifested in the poetry of A. Karimova, is characterised by the fact that the problem of identity is solved by moving to the level of universal existential themes. Ethnocultural elements (images, vocabulary) appear as part of personal experience and a universal picture of the world, centred around the concepts of home, memory, and family. Being ‘on the border’ between languages and cultures is not problematised here, but becomes the starting point, often an unnoticed backdrop for lyrical and philo- sophical expression. Each of the identified strategies of transculturation corresponds to a specific subjective architecture, imagery system, and model of the world. The lyrical hero of R. Kutuy is the bearer of a hybrid identity that is formed at the intersection of different cultural systems. His rootedness in them becomes a source of inner integrity, and the dynamics of dialogue become the basis for a stable synthetic position. The identity crisis in R. Bukharaev’s poetry destroys the integrity of the ‘I’, causing the problematisation of personal boundaries. The topos of ‘between-being,’ of being ‘on the border,’ at the point of transition from one state to another, makes R. Bukharaev’s lyrical subject probabilistically multiple, indefinite, unequal to itself. In the dialogical address to the elements of native and foreign speech, which 66 Karimova, A. 2006. Another Dress: Poems. Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, p. 99. appear in relation to the lyrical subject simultaneously as external and internal, as immanent to it and as transcendent principles, the vital and creative position of the ‘hero’ and ‘author’ is determined. For A. Karimova’s lyrical heroine, the multiplicity of cultural traditions becomes material for deeply personal expression. Images, themes and motifs referring to Tatar culture, transferred into the Russian literary, artistic and linguistic environment, not only create a unique opportunity to produce new meanings, but also participate in the search for spiritual and moral guidelines, ways and means of self-knowledge and self-expression. The image of the world in R. Kutuy’s poetry is built on the principle of complementarity of opposites and the removal of oppositions; it is characterised by coherence, continuity, succession and completeness. This artistic system gravitates towards the language of parallelisms and symbols, connecting different traditions into unified structural and semantic complexes. R. Bukharaev’s work creates a fundamentally different, open and fluid picture of reality. It is a world of ‘between- being’, devoid of a stable centre and organised around images of thresholds, ruptures and exile. His figurative language is marked by existential tension, expressed in oxymorons, stylistic breaks and metaphysical metaphors. In A. Karimova’s poetry, the vast, almost cosmic space is gradually narrowed down to a universal and intimate centre - home. In this hierarchical picture of the world, ethnocultural boundaries lose their significance against the backdrop of the fundamental problems of human existence. Karimova turns to the poetics of the lyrical diary, giving deeply personal experiences universality and general significance. The artistic and aesthetic nature of the works of R. Kutuy, R. Bukharaeva, and A. Karimova is determined by the phenomenon of cultural interference, which arises as a result of the overlapping of elements from different national artistic traditions that the poets draw on. Cultural interference is similar to polygenetic quotation, but, unlike it, not only creates semantic tension between source texts and establishes a line of continuity between them, but also involves them in processes of trans- formation and hybridisation. This enriches the Russian-language text, creating unique images and expanding the possibilities of poetic language.

About the authors

Venera R. Amineva

A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature; Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University

Author for correspondence.
Email: amineva1000@list.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4016-2242
SPIN-code: 9339-4147
Scopus Author ID: 56104054500

Professor of Department of Russian Literature and Methods of its Teaching, Kazan Federal University

25a Povarskaya St, Moscow, 121069, Russian Federation; 18 Kremlyovskaya St, Kazan, 420008

References

Supplementary files